About view filters

Filter and modify the data in a view.

Filters allow you to limit and modify the data that is included in a view. For example, you can use filters to exclude traffic from particular IP addresses, focus on a specific subdomain or directory, or convert dynamic page URLs into readable text strings.

Video overview

Predefined filters

Exclude/Include only traffic from the ISP domain: use this filter to exclude/include only traffic from a specific domain, such as an ISP or company network.

When specifying the domain name, do not include the host server label (e.g., specify example.com, not www.example.com).

Exclude/Include only traffic from the IP addresses: use this filter to exclude/include only clicks from a certain source IP address.

You can filter a simple range of addresses by using the that begin with or that end with options. If you want to filter a more complex range of addresses, use a Custom Filter to Exclude/Include using the IP Address and specify a regular expression as the Filter Pattern. See an example of using a regular expression..

Exclude/Include only traffic to the subdirectories: use this filter to exclude/include only traffic to a particular subdirectory (such as /motorcycles or /help/content/faq).

Exclude/Include only traffic to the hostname: use this filter to exclude/include only traffic to a particular hostname (such as sales.mydomain.com or support.mydomain.com).

Custom filters:

Exclude: This type of filter excludes log file lines (hits) that match the Filter Pattern. Matching lines are ignored in their entirety: for example, a filter that excludes Chrome also excludes all other information in that log line, such as visitor, path, referral, and domain information.

Include: This type of filter includes log file lines (hits) that match the Filter Pattern. All non-matching hits are ignored and any data in non-matching hits is unavailable in the reports.

Lowercase / Uppercase: Converts the contents of the field into all uppercase or all lowercase characters. These filters only affect letters, and do not affect special characters or numbers.

Search & Replace: This is a simple filter that you can use to search for a pattern within a field and replace the found pattern with an alternate form.

Advanced: This type of filter allows you to build a field from one or two other fields. The filtering engine applies the expressions in the two Extract fields to the specified fields and then constructs a third field using the Constructor expression. Read Advanced Filters for more information.

Common Uses for filters

Here are some of the ways you can use filters:

Exclude internal traffic from your reports
If you'd like to exclude internal traffic from your reports (such as traffic from your home or company intranet), you can set up a filter that includes all of the IP addresses you'd like to exclude.

Track activity in a specific directory
If you'd like to report solely on activity in a specific directory, you can set up an Include filter. Likewise, if you'd like to see data for all but one or several pages or directories, an Exclude filter will take care of it for you.

Limitations of filters

View filters are subject to the following limits and caveats:

Filters are destructive. Filtering your incoming hits permanently changes those hits in that view, according to the type of filter. Therefore, you should ALWAYS maintain an unfiltered view of your data.

Filters require up to 24 hours before they are applied to your data.

Fields specified in a filter must exist in the hit and not be null in order for the filter to be applied to that hit. For example, if you are filtering on Hostname, but the hit does not contain that field (perhaps the hit was sent via the Measurement Protocol and that request did not contain the &dh parameter), then any filters acting on Hostname will be ignored and the hit will be processed as if there was no filter.

Filters are account-level objects. If you edit a filter at the view level, you are also changing the filter at the account level. This means that any other views that use this filter will also be affected by your change. If you want to customize a single instance of an existing filter used by multiple views, create a new filter and apply it to that single view.

Use filter verification to make sure your filters are performing as expected before applying them to your incoming data.